Rosemary | Page 6

listened
eagerly, "but I don't know as I'd want to have the bending of three wills
all at once. It strikes me that the young doctor is going to be pretty busy
if he tries to 'tend to 'em all at the same time. And you say he's going to
take Dr. Jordan's practice, too."
"He'll be busy, but he can handle anything," declared Winnie
confidently. "Dr. Hugh was my baby--I took care of him till he was five
years old--and I know he'll manage all right. The girls are delighted to
have a big brother, and they'll try to please him, I know they will."
"It's funny to say, but he's almost a stranger to them, isn't he?" said Mrs.
Hollister reflectively. "How many years has he been away from
Eastshore?"

"Counting from the time he went away to school, about twelve years,"
answered Winnie. "He came home vacations, of course, but the last two
years he wasn't home at all. He's been studying abroad and Mrs. Willis
was so happy to think he'd be home with her this summer. She was
pleased as could be that he wanted to settle in Eastshore. She's talked a
lot to me, since Mr. Willis died, about what she hoped the children
would do and when Dr. Hugh wrote her that he didn't want to be a
fashionable city doctor and hoped he could do as much good in a quiet,
industrious, uncomplaining way as Doctor Jordan had done during the
forty-five years he's lived in Eastshore, why Mrs. Willis just about
cried she was so happy."
"Well, we never know what's going to happen, do we?" sighed Mrs.
Hollister, beginning to pull on her gloves as she noted that the
plain-faced kitchen clock said quarter of nine. "I'm sure I hope she'll get
the rest she deserves and come home to find nothing bad has
happened."
"Of course she will," Winnie's voice held a faint trace of indignation.
"What do you think is going to happen while she is gone? With Doctor
Hugh and Miss Trudy Wright, to say nothing of me, around to see to
everything, what else do you expect but smooth sailing?"
"Winnie!"
The kitchen door opened a crack and a dark head poked itself in.
"Winnie, do you care if I take a piece of the chocolate cake from the
buffet closet?" asked Sarah politely. "I'm hungry."
"Your brother says you eat too much cake--go to bed and you'll fall
asleep again and forget that you're hungry," commanded Winnie.
"Can't I have just one piece?" insisted Sarah.
"You can not," said Winnie firmly.
"Well, I thought you'd say that," announced Sarah calmly, "so I took it

first, before I asked you."
"Give it to me this instant," cried Winnie, swooping upon the small girl.
"Oh, I've eaten it," declared Sarah pleasantly. "I thought you'd make a
fuss."
Winnie looked at Mrs. Hollister, who was moving toward the door.
"All I have to say," said the visitor majestically, "is Heaven help the
young doctor."
CHAPTER III
AUNT TRUDY COMES
"Are you going to the station, Sarah?" Sarah, stretched in luxurious
comfort on the porch rug, raised a rumpled head above her book and
frowned.
"Why should I go to the station?" she drawled.
"You know perfectly well," answered Rosemary with some impatience.
"Aunt Trudy is coming on the 4:10 and Hugh asked us to meet her."
"You go--you're the oldest," said Sarah calmly. "I want to read about
sick rabbits."
"Sarah, you know you promised mother to be good and to do the things
you thought would please her. Come on and meet Aunt Trudy--we'll all
go, you and I and Shirley," wheedled Rosemary, beginning to roll up
her knitting.
"Where's Hugh--why doesn't he go?" asked Sarah who usually
exhausted all arguments before giving in.
"Hugh's down at Dr. Jordan's and he won't be home till dinner time,"
replied Rosemary. "Mother would want us to be nice to Aunt Trudy,
you know she would."

"Well, I'm going to be nice," insisted Sarah, scrambling to her feet and
hurling the book under the swing where she kept the larger part of her
dilapidated library. "I'll go to the station if I can go as I am--I have to
clean the rabbit hutch when I get back and I won't have time to be
dressing and undressing all the afternoon."
"You can't go as you are!" Rosemary surveyed her sister appraisingly.
"Your face is black and your dress has a grease spot across the front.
And you haven't any hair ribbon."
"I'll go as I am, or I won't go at all," repeated Sarah coolly.
Rosemary stabbed her long needles into her half-finished sweater and
hung her knitting bag on the back of her chair.
"Then you can stay home," she said crossly.